For an electric powered vehicle such as an electric car or a hybrid vehicle that drives an electric motor for driving a vehicle by the electric power from a power storage device typically represented by a secondary battery, there is proposed a configuration of charging the power storage device by a power supply external to the vehicle (hereinafter, simply referred to as “external power supply”. Hereinafter, charging of a power storage device by an external power supply will be also referred to as “external charging”.
For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2009-225587 (PTL 1) discloses a configuration of achieving improvement in the charging efficiency at the time of external charging together with ensuring the operation of the auxiliary machine load system. Specifically, there is disclosed a configuration of providing a main battery charging path by external charging so as to allow external charging and the operation of the auxiliary machine load system even if the relay between the electric motor for driving a vehicle and the main battery is OFF.